Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground

While it is not a traditional cemetery, many of Richmond's first citizens lie in unmarked graves here. Richmond's gallows was above on the hillside. Executed here was Gabriel, a charismatic 24-year old blacksmith from Thomas Henry Prosser's Brookfield Plantation. Gabriel and his colleagues believed that Nature's God entitled them to equal station with men and women of all races. They conspired in 1800 to take over the Virginia government in an extensive, sophisticated campaign which was betrayed after a major rainstorm delayed the effort.